Skiing in Harbin, China

I hate the cold and I mean really hate the cold. I hate that my fingers and toes turn yellow, you know similar to what dead people look like. Am I a zombie? Nope. Do my blood tests come back with any problems? Nope. So I’ve gone ahead and self diagnosed myself with Raynaud’s disease which in short causes discolouration of fingers and toes, as well as numbness and pain due to cold weather conditions.

Did I mention that I also live in Harbin, China aka Ice City where temperatures here can reach as low as -38 C (-36 F)? There are many things I do in my life that don’t make sense and I think moving to a colder city than I am originally from (Toronto, Ontario) is one of those things.

Last week my boss mentioned that we would be going skiing on Monday, my mind automatically went back in time to grade 7 when I was at Blue Mountain Ski Resort bawling my eyes out because my fingers and toes were in extreme pain due what I thought at the time was extreme frost bite. Since that day I vowed I would never find myself at another ski resort again. I looked at my boss and replied “yay!” while crying inside.

This time I arrived more than prepared, I was not going to go home with numb, stinging yellow fingers or toes and I wasn’t going to shed any thug tears. The good thing about living in a city that gets this cold is vendors sell everything to keep you warm during the winter and it’s extremely affordable. I left my house with 3 pairs of cashmere lined stockings, 1 long sleeve shirt with a sweater over it, a light coat, followed by my Community winter coat I bought in Canada, fake Ugg boots with cashmere insoles, my Grabber Warmers for my hands and feet my family had sent for me, my fleece lined hat and of course mittens. Despite the fact that I could barely move and every time I got inside I would sweat buckets, it didn’t matter… I was warm.

Harbin Institute Of Physical Education Ski Field is small.The ski hill is located 85 km to the southeast of Harbin and is easily accessible by public transport. I only saw two types of ski lifts available, one was the gondola lift which is a cable car you sit inside that suspends in the air and brings you to the top of the mountain and the second was a T-bar lift where riders still have their feet on the ground while they’re pulled up hill. I gracefully skied down the not so steep hill screaming the majority of the way down.

Skiing in China was not something that was on my bucket list but I’m glad to be able to add it to my list of Restless Feet adventures and I’m extremely grateful to have done it with such a great group of girls.